Singapore: Indian-origin man jailed 10 months for stabbing wife

A 29-year-old Indian-origin man in Singapore was jailed 10 months for stabbing his estranged wife in front of their two children in October last year

Singapore: A 29-year-old Indian-origin man in Singapore was jailed 10 months for stabbing his estranged wife in front of their two children in October last year.

Suresh David Narasimmalu, had been on a Diwali shopping with his wife Vasentha Kumari, 30, and their boys aged five and seven when the pair began arguing as they walked along Race Course Road in Little India. Narasimmalu pulled out his Swiss army knife from a sling bag and stabbed Kumari in the abdomen in front of the boys, aged five and seven.

He then fled in a taxi, the Strait Times reported today. Kumari, bleeding from the stab, called the police and was underwent emergency surgery at a hospital. She spent six days in hospital. The court heard that the two were going through a divorce. Deputy Public Prosecutor Carene Poh said Narasimmalu's knife attack was "not only vicious but gratuitous".

In mitigation, Narasimmalu's lawyer said his client's actions were not premeditated but provoked by his wife, who had left him for another man. Narasimmalu had been "under tremendous stress from the failed marriage, not being able to see his children daily and from the betrayal of the victim," said the lawyer.

He was carrying the knife as a work tool, the lawyer said. For voluntarily causing hurt with dangerous means, he could have been jailed for up to seven years, fined and caned.